


Dignity and Intimacy

by Nihonkikuasa211



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Heavy Angst, Major Spoilers, Tag to 2x15, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 07:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9591956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nihonkikuasa211/pseuds/Nihonkikuasa211
Summary: Mario holds Heather close to him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Watch this episode before reading this story please. It will not make sense unless you watch it first.

_Dignity and Intimacy_

 

Mario could still feel the warmth of her body as he held her close. She still was warm. He almost thought that he could still hear her breath easing out of her chest, soft and assuring. Even though logically he knew that it had been hours since Heather had been able to breathe on her own. Her chapped lips, crusted with her own blood, no longer functioned. Her voice, which at first Mario found grating, would never say another word. Lowering his forehead against her hair, the second-year resident could almost feel the aura of tragedy as moments slowly, painstakingly, passed.

Five people had died from hemorrhagic fever. And now… Mario couldn’t cry. It stunned him that he was too numb to cry, or to feel anything. Unlike the death of his father, there was no violent grief and sobs that tore from his chest. There was no one to embrace, for him to be held as he cried like a lost child. Truly, Mario and the others standing in the quarantine didn’t have time to cry. They had no time to grieve. There were still patients to treat, to comfort as they breathed their last horrific breaths before being intubated, and to prepare themselves that they too had been infected.

Mario had thought that dying burned would be the most undignified death he had seen in his two years at Angels. He had proven wrong. The patients they had treated had died in the most horrific way he could have imagined. Their skin became turned purplish red, the infection spreading to their organs. The organ failure eventually spread to their lungs, breathing became too difficult. The intubation was easy. But Mario kept on imagining the pain and agony the patients went through. There was no such thing as a dignified death here. The bodies of the deceased had not been moved. The dark-haired resident still pressed his forehead into Heather’s hair. She smelled of blood and mucus. Not the raspberry scent that a long time ago he had smelled when he had hooked-up with her.

He and Malaya had used forty minutes to try to revive Heather. If she had been able to survive, broken ribs would have possibly punctured a lung, causing her to have surgery. After waking up, the surgical resident would have scolded Mario, telling them off before teasing him for flirting – even though it had been more than a year since they had slept together. He had once thought of Heather in disgust, thinking her nothing more than a shallow surgeon who had gotten Angus addicted to Adderall. Looking back, she hadn’t been a good person then. Then, neither had he. The selfishness they both carried disintegrated, and Mario found himself enjoying sparse conversations he had with Heather. And now he was holding her head, her hair smooth against his skin. Mario didn’t know how much time he, Malaya, and Elliot had before they would die. Dr. Rorish and Willis had been told by the CDC that they couldn’t come here any longer. Although Mario tried to not think about the real truth about why they were taken away, the thoughts came anyway. _You’re expendable. All of you, everyone here is expendable._ That was why the two attendings had been taken away. The patients surrounding them, dead and alive, were expendable.

Somehow though, Mario didn’t care. _This_ is what practicing medicine was about. It wasn’t about money, prestige, or anything that he had thought of when he had first come to Angels two years ago. It was the humbling experience of treating patients with as much dignity as they could, and pronouncing death with the same somberness as saving a life. Mario continued to breathe, memories and sorrow almost collapsing his composure as his forehead pressed against Heather’s hair.

There was no time to be heroes.

They could only treat their patients with dignity and care before they became too sick to care for themselves.

Mario gently pulled his forehead away from Heather’s hair, and stared at the face staring back at him. Before he could second-guess, the man who had a black heart, kissed her forehead before lowering her onto her bed.

The gentle gesture burned in his mind as Mario attempted to control the words wanting to come out of his mouth.

But there was nothing to say.


End file.
